


being poor was never better

by irishmizzy



Category: The Office (US)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-03-14
Updated: 2010-03-14
Packaged: 2017-10-08 00:09:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,557
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/70683
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/irishmizzy/pseuds/irishmizzy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>That year Toby spent in Hawaii, drinking and working and generally being twenty-three.</p>
            </blockquote>





	being poor was never better

**Author's Note:**

> Based on a deleted scene from "Back from Vacation."

It starts as a joke, of course, a way of dealing with the endless string of job interviews, the all-nighters, the general stress of being forced to grow up.

"Fuck it," Keith says, late one night over $3 pitchers. "Let's just move to Hawaii and take up surfing."

"I do like pineapple," Toby says.

And that's all it takes, really.

They spend the rest of the night drunkenly planning everything from where they would live to what kind of car they'd drive and how they can convince their parents to let them go. When they finally stumble home, Toby dreams of palm trees and hula girls and the turquoise blue ocean as far as he can see.

**

It never really gets mentioned again, except in the vague "I'd rather be in Hawaii" way they'll talk about it whenever Keith has a test to study for or Toby is stuck writing another twenty page paper on the precepts of behaviorism or whatever.

But then graduation is looming on the horizon and neither of them has had any luck finding jobs and Toby comes home one day to stacks of brochures about Hawaiian rental homes and the cost of plane tickets and lists of possible jobs.

And that's when they start to really plan.

Toby tucks a stuffed manila folder into his backpack when he goes home for Easter.

"You know how kids go backpacking through Europe? I want to go to Hawaii," he tells his parents. "It doesn't have to be for very long, and I can get a job once I get there. I just – I need some time to figure everything out."

"You really want this?" his dad asks, leafing through a copy of _Fodors Hawaii_.

Toby nods. His dad looks at Toby's mom for a minute; Toby nervously straightens the stack of papers in front of him.

"Alright. We'll think about it."

For graduation, Toby's parents buy him a plane ticket to Honolulu.

**

The lady on the phone had called it a bungalow and said it was within walking distance to the beach.

It's pretty much a one-bedroom shack that looks like it's five minutes from caving in on itself. The beach is twenty minutes away, and it's less "endless stretch of sand" and more "cliff that drops straight into the ocean."

Still, for the next two months it's their shack, and despite the peeling paint and leaky faucet, they settle into a routine.

Keith surfs every morning, up before dawn so he can catch the best waves. Sometimes he tries to drag Toby along, but it's just not really his thing. Toby had tried to learn once - he ended up with a bloody nose and a stomach full of saltwater. So instead he sleeps in and makes coffee and reads the paper. Sometimes, when he wakes up feeling ambitious, he'll run toward the ocean and follow the cliff until it turns into actual beach, and then he'll sit and watch the waves until his legs don't ache and he can run home again.

There's a bar a few blocks from their place – Hideaway, except the H in the neon sign is always broken, so for two weeks Toby'd thought it was called Idea Way. It's a dingy, dirty place that always plays loud music and serves every single drink in a clear plastic solo cup. They walk there at night to order cheeseburgers and fries and enough beers to ease their sunburn and jet lag.

They make friends with a couple other young regulars who live nearby, and suddenly they're taking day trips to the North Shore and spending Friday nights at nicer bars in town. There's talk of flying to Maui so they can drive to Hana, or maybe to Hawaii so they can see an active volcano.

It's this kind of lifestyle that means Toby needs a job come July.

**

One of the hotels in town hires them both as valets. Now they spend their days dealing with all the screaming families and confused tourists and harried businessmen who wanted their cars five minutes ago.

Toby doesn't really enjoy having a job where people complain to him all day, but after work he and Keith hang out at Hideaway, playing darts and drinking beer. And after a few drinks he doesn't care about work.

Every night it's the same; the bar's dark and not quite crowded. They sit at a table in the corner trading horror stories about missing valet tickets and phantom scratches on doors. People come and go, sitting down for a drink or challenging them to a game of pool or making fun of Toby for wearing his white work polo with board shorts. It's like his very own Cheers, and Toby doesn't know if that makes him Cliff or Norm, or if his apparently useless degree in Psychology means he's Frasier, but he also doesn't care.

When the end of August rolls around, they automatically sign a six-month lease on the house. They celebrate by sitting on the beach-cliff and drinking themselves stupid.

Toby wakes up late the next morning, achy and cotton-mouthed and slightly disoriented.

"We need eggs," Keith says as Toby drops into the armchair in the living room/dining room that's also Keith's bedroom. "And bread. And milk."

"So? You know where the store is."

"So do you."

"Shut up."

"You shut up," Keith says, and turns his attention back to what looks like a soap opera. Toby shuffles into the kitchen hoping the banana he saw yesterday doesn't have too many brown spots yet.

Later, Keith comes back from the store with food and beer and pot and they lie in the backyard and smoke because it's Tuesday and they're twenty-three and they live in fucking Hawaii.

**

There's a girl staring at him from her spot at the bar. Her skin's red from too much sun and that's how Toby knows she's not from around here. She smiles shyly at him and he smiles back and wonders why anyone would want to spend their vacation in this craphole.

"You should go talk to her." Keith says.

Toby rolls his eyes. Keith punches him in the arm.

"Go, or I'm going to make you buy my beers for the next month."

"Shut up," Toby says, but he's already walking across the room when he says it, standing next to her to order another beer.

"Hi," he says, trying to yell over the blaring music. "I'm Toby."

She smiles again, brighter this time, and says her name's Jenny. Her drink is a deep pink and she keeps stirring it with a neon green bendy straw while she talks, telling him about her job in Ohio, about carefully planned trip to Hawaii. Eventually they move away from the bar, to a less crowded corner farther away from the speakers.

"So." She pauses to sip her pink drink and Toby tries not to stare. "So, Toby, where are you from?"

"I'm from here," he says.

"Really?" she asks, and she smiles again, leans into him. Toby nods. Her sunburned shoulders are hot under his palms. He slides his hands down her arms, settling them on her hips.

"I like this," she says, fingers tracing the puka and hemp necklace he's started wearing. "So, do you, like, surf?"

"Not really," he says, just before he kisses her.

She tastes like berries and spiced rum, and every inch of her skin is as sunburn-hot as her shoulders.

**

"When are you going to get a real job?" his mom asks. His coffee's cold now, but he drinks it anyway. He has to be at work in an hour; he still hasn't showered and Keith isn't back from the beach yet. They'll probably be late.

"I have a real job, Mom," he says, and she launches into the same speech she always gives, about how being a valet isn't a real job and twenty-three is too old for lazing about in Hawaii and he should just come home already.

"I will, Mom. Soon," he promises, just before he hangs up the phone. "Love you, too. Bye."

He rinses his mug and sets it in the sink and wonders how much longer he can keep making the same promise before she holds him to it.

**

One Tuesday Keith goes to the store to buy paper towels, eggos, and hamburger buns for a barbeque they're having that afternoon. He comes home with eggos, buns, and a hammock.

"What do we even need a hammock for?"

Keith shrugs. "Sitting in."

"How can you even afford that? Hammocks are expensive."

"It was on sale, Toby. Shit, just… relax." Keith's voice is muffled as he rifles through the box. "A ha!" He waves the instructions in the air, grinning.

"No," Toby says, shaking his head. "I am not helping you put that together. People are going to be here soon and I will not going to be responsible for any hammock-related injuries."

"Fine. But you're banned from the hammock, then."

So Toby grills while Keith makes everyone help him put the hammock together. The first time someone sits on it, it crashes apart.

Everyone laughs, even Tina, whose knee is already bruising from her stint as hammock guinea pig. Keith curses under his breath and furrows his brow at the directions, trying to figure out where it all went wrong.

"I think you might want to try using those." Toby points his spatula at a pair of screws in the grass next to the hammock box.

"Shut up and make me a hamburger, bitch," Keith says, mock-angrily. Toby flips him off. He gives him the burger that accidentally fell on the ground.

"You didn't even wipe this off, jackass." Keith flicks a blade of grass off his burger before smothering it with ketchup.

"I would have," Toby says, "except someone bought a hammock instead of paper towels."

**

Spending the holidays away from home is probably the weirdest thing he's ever done, he thinks. But he tries to make the best of it.

There's a formal Thanksgiving dinner at Hideaway, a weird cross between a luau and a traditional dinner. They string up lights outside their house and give each other presents bought at the dollar store. On New Year's Eve everyone goes to a bonfire on the beach to drink and roast marshmallows. At midnight they set off fireworks and dance along the shore.

It's on nights like these that Toby lies in bed, half-drunk and heavy-limbed, wondering what the hell he's doing here. He's supposed to be figuring things out – that was the whole point of this trip.

Sure, he's figured out how long he can get away without reapplying sunscreen before he ends up with blisters. He knows exactly how close you can park two cars without scratching any paint, and how to tune out ranting guests while still looking sympathetic.

But when it comes to what he actually wants to do for the rest of his life? He's no closer to an answer than he was on graduation day.

All the questions aren't enough to stop him from signing another six-month lease in February, though, because who would be crazy enough leave Hawaii in the winter?

**

For two weeks in the spring, Toby's put in charge of the car of some big shot in from New York. Apparently Mr. Tucker, Room 219, doesn't like just anybody driving his rental car. He's a big guy, hulking and refrigerator-like, and he seems pretty on edge. Keith thinks that maybe he's on a vacation from his job as a hit man for the mafia.

"You don't want to scratch his car, is all I'm saying. Don't get on that guy's bad side," is all the advice Keith has.

Mr. Tucker seems to like Toby, though, thank God. It means he probably won't wake up wearing cement shoes in the Pacific. And as a bonus, there's one less person yelling at him when there's a line of cars parked in front of the hotel and all he wants to do is jack one and drive across the island for the afternoon.

He even talks to Toby sometimes – asks if he grew up here, what he studied in college, if he has any siblings. It's all polite, superficial exchanges over the car roof and through rolled down windows. Toby smiles a lot and hopes it means he'll get a nice tip when the end of his trip rolls around. He could really use the extra cash.

**

Toby's stuck diffusing a fight between one of the valets and a middle-aged woman in a red Camaro when Mr. Tucker pulls into the circle one morning.

"Ma'am, if you want to come over here and file a complaint, we'll get this all settled quickly," Toby says calmly, leading the guest inside to the front desk. He glances over his shoulder and sees Mr. Tucker watching him carefully. He hopes this won't detract from his tip.

Toby flags down a manager and leaves the guest to lodge her complaint and hurries back outside to where Mr. Tucker's leaning against his car, arms folded, waiting.

"Nice work, there," he says, handing Toby the keys.

"Oh, um," Toby stammers. "Thanks. Happens all the time – it was nothing." He tries to relax, forces himself to laugh as Mr. Tucker strolls inside.

Later that afternoon, Toby brings Mr. Tucker's car around for the last time.

"Have a good flight, sir," he says when he hands over the keys.

"You're a good kid, Toby," Mr. Tucker says, clapping him on the shoulder. Toby refrains from visibly wincing. "Good luck with everything. And if you ever need a job, you give me a call."

Toby shakes his hand and says thank you. When he pulls back his hand there's a roll of bills and a business card. He quickly tucks both into his back pocket and pulls open the sliding door of a just-arrived airport shuttle with a smile.

"Aloha," he says, "welcome to Waikiki."

**

He passes the joint to Keith and inches back so his face is shadowed by the palm tree. It's a typical Tuesday.

There's a business card on his dresser. Robert Tucker, it says, Director of Human Resources. Dunder-Mifflin, Inc. It's been there for a month, and now every time his mom asks when he's going to get a real job and move home, Toby considers calling Mr. Tucker.

"I can't believe we've been here almost a year," he says. He thinks of the folders of Hawaii brochures and the guidebooks and how it was all a joke at first.

"Do you ever think about going home?"

Keith shifts in the hammock, lifting his head up slightly to look at the house and then at Toby lying on the ground.

"Dude, we are home," he says, like it's the most obvious thing in the world.

"Yes," Toby says, nodding slowly. "We are."

He closes his eyes and basks in the warmth of the sun on his stomach. Next to him, the hammock swings gently side-to-side. He takes a deep breath and decides that he doesn't care what his mother says, doesn't care that he's almost twenty-four and a valet living in a shack with peeling paint and leaking faucets, living a life without any real direction.

He's pretty sure he'll figure it out soon enough.


End file.
